Born in Fullerton, California, when Orange County was still full of orange groves, her family moved from El Modena to a rural home in Redding when she was in the in seventh grade. There she embarked on a her lifelong penchant for outdoor adventures, which included terrifying her mother by trapping black widows, and riding through the chaparral on her beloved horse Susie. She joined 4-H, and could be counted on to sing the club's pep song at the drop of a hat even half a century later. She followed her big brother Tommy to Chico State for college, where she met her future husband, Bill Roehr. A keen sense of adventure inspired her and Bill to quit their jobs after the arrival of their first child and take a yearlong sojourn throughout the contiguous United States in a Terry Travel Trailer, thereby getting a forty-year jump on the whole #vanlife and #digitalnomad hipsters. 

Her generous and compassionate heart led to her to help others: first in social work, and later as a high school guidance counselor. In between those career bookends, she dived into varied pursuits: her work in architectural drafting culminated in the design of a passive solar home that the family built and lived in in Lake of the Pines. Later she opened cookie shop in Rocklin where her daughters enjoyed helping themselves to the inventory -- ahem, that is -- leant a helping hand. Her irreverent sense of humor helped her deal with misadventures in life and on the job, like the time back in her social work days that she and her friend Diane were chased through their office by an escaped baboon. Apparently the baboon hurled exactly what you're thinking from the tops of the cubicle dividers at the terrified staff. 

Like Mark Twain, she fervently believed that "travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." Her open-hearted desire to learn from, and live in, other cultures led her to serve as a liaison for foreign exchange students at the high school where she worked (Bear River), providing nurturing support for teens who might be a little homesick or feel isolated during their time abroad. She encouraged both of her daughters to study overseas during high school, and it was through her hosting a student that our family got our "third sister" from Switzerland, Su, a connection that lasted long past the exchange year. After retirement Judy traveled whenever possible, often independently. She visited the U.K., Europe, China, and Central America. It was always her goal to become fluent in Spanish, and she was determined until the end to practice it whenever the opportunity presented itself (although this may have been a pretext to go to Mexican restaurants more often, we can't say for sure).

She was adventurous, undaunted and independent. After retirement she relocated from northern California to north Idaho. She moved for the beautiful scenery and found a new adventure fighting the good fight of a tree-hugging secular humanitarian in the community. This move reflected her indefatigable optimism, a quality that helped her face pancreatic cancer treatment with humor and and an upbeat attitude after an initial diagnosis in 2017. In her fifteen years in Coeur d'Alene, she volunteered at Habitat for Humanity, at the library, the local chapters of the Democratic party and the Sierra Club, and at the local community college theater. She also used that time to turn her beloved home from a cookie-cutter suburban house into a shrine to whimsy painted in an irreverent shade of purple. A carefree wildland gradually replaced the front lawn, and her garden became home to an entire ecosystem of wind chimes, kinetic sculpture, and follies. 

She loved thunderstorms, tap dancing, and puttering in the garden. She adored the flavor of garlic so much she would have worn it as a perfume if they made it. She loved to laugh, frequently at her own jokes, and had a song for every occasion, often from a musical (Julie Andrews and Rogers & Hammerstein features were favorites). She would sometimes describe herself as a “Pollyanna” with her unfailing effervescent optimism, but it is just as true to say she resembled Pippi Longstocking, the unconventional and imaginative heroine who lived alone and did exactly as she pleased. Judy, like Pippi, never let objective reality displace a good story or a novel way of seeing the world.  Also like Pippi, Judy was a great “thing finder.” She never tossed anything that might be useful, so if you’re in need of any cookbooks from the 70’s, cobalt blue glassware (she insists it be kept together as a collection!), or a fifty-year-old electric can opener that still works, please BYO U-Haul to Idaho sometime next spring. This is purely to prevent her daughters, as she sheepishly told them she feared, from “killing her a second time after she’s dead” when they are left to sort through her vast collection of treasures.